What's up with the guy in a white t-shirt,(Olympic shooter maybe?) guy being popular in every meme on Lemmy right now?

We're used to people who compete at world class levels having the highest tech, equipment, and perfect poise.

This guy competed in an extremely casual way, and still won silver.

It's just a humorous subversion of expectations, especially compared to some of the other competitors in the same sport.

Remember when the Olympics was about sending ordinary people who were good at a skill to compete, instead of a life-long career pushing body and tech to the edge to see who would win the arms race of a sport?

I don't either, it's been a while. As a 70s kid it was the same as it is now, just less knowledge of how to squeeze everything out of an athlete.
- Don't give up hope! We still have a long way to go in terms of optimal athlete squeezing 👍
- And best of all, in a ton of countries, once these athletes have competed, they STILL won't make much money to make up for the years of hardcore work to reach this level and make their country proud.
There's nothing wrong with his poise. He's not wearing headgear besides his glasses, but otherwise he's standing pretty much the same as other shooters. A lot of shooters wear eye shades or visors, but most of them stand like that. You place your off hand in your pocket, and lean back slightly to align the sights. It's not the first time a shooter's pose has gone viral for looking like a casual badass gangster.

see: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/vitalina-batsarashkina-olympic-shooter-one-hand-stance/

And here are a bunch more shooters. Note how many aren't wearing headgear or eye pieces.

https://img.olympics.com/images/image/private/t_16-9_380/f_auto/primary/aotouao8efquumuiekw6
- It is such a perfect example of the internet that the woman in this pose is treated like a fool and the man with the exact same pose is some kind of badass.
Got it, thanks.

I think my problem is that so many of the mews don't even reference him being in every man, or not using specialized equipment, they just have a picture of him with no context or caption
If his teammates weren't busy being failures, he would have won gold. Dude was the highest individual scorer I believe.
I find it to be an extremely stupid meme. He lost to someone using high tech shit. I don't get why people are trying to make him into something more than he was.
To be fair though the fancy equipment isn’t giving any sort of advantage or anything. It’s just applying prescription eyeglasses to shooting. Apart from that no difference with other competitors.
- I've seen the photo of the Korean Olympic shooter. That headgear isn't just prescription eyeglasses.

There's also a Turkish female pistol shooter with the same style and casual approach: Sevval Ilayda Tarhan.

Tarhan and Yusuf Dikec together won the silver medal in shooting for Turkey at the Olympic Games in Paris.

But everybody only talks about the man.

She is wearing hearing protection and a tactical looking hat, so there is less of a meme potential as the contrast is smaller.

Also I read somewhere, that the casual looking stance is actually a stabilisation technique.

So no mysoginy here
Meh. She seems way too focused.

The guy looks like he does this every day, constantly. Brushing his teeth? He fires the gun. Tying his shoes? He fires the gun. Wiping his ass? He fires the gun.

Firing the gun is just something he does. He does it a lot. Then one day the Olympics shooting coach showed up and decided to put him out there on behalf of Turkey.
!

Jeez, thanks for sharing that!

They won the silver medal together?

Even every single explanation here has just been about him.

That's crazy.

Thank you again for sharing that, jeez.

She should definitely be similarly hoisted atop their shoulders in these memes.
- Yes, as can be seen in the picture I shared, they both were shooting side by side.

He's the Turkish Olympic shooter and just won silver, using no special equipment, and participating in jeans and a t-shirt instead of any national garb.

And he was aiming & firing more like an executor than a precision shooter, so there were some rumors circulating that he's an ex-agent or some gangster.

In reality he seems to be a family father who got pissed during an ugly divorce and started shooting to calm his nerves or something.

He's not wearing jeans. He's wearing the official Turkish Olympic shooter uniform.

https://images.seattletimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/urnpublicidap.orga7890124304080a48e7ee4294004d306Paris_Olympics_Shooting_55532.jpg?d=780x520
- He still looks like a dad on a Sunday afternoon.
Okay, cool, thanks.

This is starting to make more sense.

He’s cool-looking.

Didn't many other shooters stand the same way?
- Not as cool though 😎
- I think one of the differences is how their shoulders are up vs Turkish guys relaxed shoulder gives me an overall more relaxed look.

From what I can tell, it's a juxtaposition thing. Many of the other shooters used in memes have stances that appear outlandish, and have gear that looks a little strange, almost trending towards ridiculous. The man you're referencing, Yusuf looks incredibly casual in comparison. His stance is at least recognizable as a shooting stance (even if it's almost appears too casual), his hand is in his pocket, and he isn't visibly using any of the gear that many other shooters are.

I haven't kept track very closely outside of the memes, so I can't comment on Yusuf's performance in comparison to the others, but the memes paint his character to be someone that gets the task done with minimal resources, where the others are given the role of a "tryhard" for the sake of the meme.

Evidently the imagery of these competitive shooters resonated with enough people that Lemmy had a small breakdown, but I always love to see my Lemmy feed trend into one topic for an evening or two. We all remember the beef stroganoff incident.

And orbs, apparently?

Okay, thanks, I'll try to understand the memes in that context, they are not clicking for me yet.
- The head on picture is reminiscent of gangster movies, and his gun doesn't seem to have a brightly colored barrel. So the picture itself looks like someone off the street aiming near the camera in a casual looking stance. Very gangster looking compared to the other colorful uniforms and pistols in the comparison shots taken from the side.

The dude was a fucking Chad that's why. No specialized equipment. Casual demeanor. Didn't even close one eye. Still won silver.

Specialized equipment like... A gun? Didn't even close an eye, like everyone except people on the carnival
- ...in comparison to other competitors - yes?